Originally Posted by butterflywing
i'm not sure i understand the concept. if you want a stretched machine (i have seen them) how do they compare in price? the tin lizzie AND several others are below $8,000 and are made to fit exactly in themselves on their custom frames.
furthermore, you can see and try them at shows, and make your own deals for shipping. i did not pay any shipping for mine. you can also deal for loads of extras, especially in a poor economy.
since they haven't been fiddled with at the head or needle, everything is as it was built to work. will the factory stand behind the machine once it's stretched? or are you protected only as long as this company exists. who gives you phone support?
$8,000 is still a lot of money considering you can buy a new Juki for under $1,000 and even if Rick charges $1,800 to stretch it you've got plenty left over to buy all those other goodies that are supposedly "free" with the more expensive setups.
I believe many of the machines are stretched domestic or even shortened industrial machines. If support is a major concern for you, I would suggest Nolting & Hinterberg machines and frames. Their support is fantastic according to the owners groups.
Some of the biggest hurdles to frame machine quilting can't be helped with "tech support." Only practice, practice, practice can help. If you think you're going to load a king size quilt and get it all done with perfectly tensioned stitches the same day your setup is delivered--you are in for a very rude awakening! You're going to have thread breaks, pokies, loopies, eyelashes, puckers, broken needles, defective bobbins, etc. Learning to deal with all these events is part of the practice, practice, practice. Owning a machine quilting system and playing with them at quilt shops are 2 completely different animals. The best support in the world is not going to come to your house every time you run out of bobbin thread or you discover your backing is 2 inches too short.
Now that I am completely off topic, I guess I should mention that I have a Voyager 17 SLR from Hinterberg which is a stretched machine on a Superquilter Pro-Flex frame and even if I had bought the entire setup brand new (I got it off ebay for a super-low price that they really shouldn't have been accepted) it would only be half of that $8,000.
I, personally, have only had one issue I couldn't fix myself while frame quilting. A big lint ball got sucked up into the tension disks on the computerized domestic machine that I used to quilt with and I couldn't get it out so it had to go to the hospital. On the Voyager, there are very clear instructions for removing the tension assembly should the need arise and being strictly mechanical, it's a lot easier to work on myself.